Cigarettes, booze and more have been readily available to Farrell since he became famous, he says. But the actor, who kicked a years-long substance abuse problem in 2005, has had a more difficult time getting respect as a Hollywood leading man.

Over the past decade, he’s starred in a reboot of the sci-fi classic “Total Recall,” a remake of the vampire comedy “Fright Night” and the swords-and-sandals epic “Alexander.” But none of those turned golden at the box office.

With his latest film — the time-travel love story “Winter’s Tale,” based on Mark Helprin’s lengthy fantasy novel — Farrell tries his hand at playing a romantic hero. That character is a charming thief who falls for an heiress suffering from tuberculosis. The movie marks the directorial debut of Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman.

The 37-year-old Farrell has built a reputation as a compelling actor with a surprisingly wide range. In December, he earned strong reviews for a supporting role as P.L. Travers’ endearing alcoholic father in “Saving Mr. Banks.”

The actor may have the looks for glitzy studio fare, but he has often seemed more at home in grittier independent films — “In Bruges,” “Seven Psychopaths,” “The Way Back.”

Even Farrell isn’t sure where he fits in the movie business. His résumé of late, he admits, “paints a picture of a very confused actor who has no idea what the hell he’s into.”

Here’s what he does know: that he wants to avoid making more films with guns. Partly that’s because he has two young boys, and he’s begun to think about the effect of movie violence on society. But he’s also interested in telling different stories now — ones with fewer explosions.

“The scripts I’m drawn to now … deal in a greater degree of emotional and psychological minutiae,” he says. “I just don’t know that I want to be part of things that are superficially entertaining. … Without getting too high and mighty about it at all, I have to have a greater level of justification if I’m going to do something that involves that kind of violence again.”

In the weeks leading up to production on “Saving Mr. Banks,” director John Lee Hancock says Farrell sent him dozens of emails about his vision for the character.

“You don’t often get letters from actors, and he was writing this beautiful stuff about what the character meant to him,” Hancock recalls. “He’s such a soulful guy, with this Irish poet’s soul, that I totally believed he could play a father a little girl would idolize.”

That Farrell can play a convincing role model may be surprising, given his history as a tabloid mainstay. Before he shipped off to rehab nine years ago, he was known as the ultimate Hollywood bad boy. He spent two years living in the Chateau Marmont, when he “had more money than sense,” and his kids subsisted on room-service club sandwiches. He filmed a sex tape with a Playboy Playmate (which she eventually leaked) and showed up high on the set of “Miami Vice.”

Even though he’s been clean for nearly a decade, stories from that era trail him. But he says, “The worst thing I’ve done since then is sneak a … Subway sandwich into the ArcLight. And even that was only a 6-inch.”

Beside the pool, the sole physical remnants of his edgy persona are the small silver hoops piercing his ears. His hair is held back with an elastic band, as if he’s just come from yoga class. Beaded bracelets with tassels grace his wrists. Between drags on the cigarette, he sips green tea.

Farrell has lived in L.A. for years. Two of his sisters, as well as his mom, whose apartment he drives past almost daily on Sunset Boulevard, moved here after he became famous. But his roots are in Ireland; he grew up in a Dublin suburb, the son of a professional club soccer player. Farrell went on to train at the country’s Gaiety School of Acting before landing his breakout role in Joel Schumacher’s 2000 film “Tigerland.” Soon after that, Vanity Fair anointed him “the Irish Brad Pitt.”

Such labels, Farrell insists, are less important to him now than they once were. He was disappointed, for instance, when “Total Recall” did poorly at the box office a couple of years ago, but didn’t take that nearly as hard as when “Alexander” flopped in 2004.

“I read every bad thing on ‘Alexander.’ I think I wrote some bad reviews for ‘Alexander,'” he jokes. “I read everything. I translated stuff. I read stuff that was in Farsi because I wanted to know every single word.”

Of course, his misfires have impacted him in other ways. In 2012, “Total Recall,” which cost $125 million to make, grossed less than $60 million in the States, which meant “studios aren’t going to be running to put your number on speed dial,” Farrell says.

Nonetheless, Goldsman still wanted him for “Winter’s Tale.” More important, “the studio didn’t care as much about Farrell’s track record as the film’s price point,” the director says, alluding to the movie’s modest $35 million budget.

“I didn’t really think about how the audience thinks of him,” Goldsman continues. “I just thought about how I saw him. There’s something very magnetic about him. He’s got a great, giant heart, but he’s shielded — and that makes you lean in.”

If “Winter’s Tale” doesn’t set box-office records, Farrell probably will be fine. His next film, “The Lobster,” is a dystopian love story co-starring Rachel Weisz, which starts filming this month in Ireland. After that wraps, he’ll return to his home in L.A.’s Los Feliz neighborhood, where he has his kids, hikes and his movie nights.

“A genuinely interesting thing has happened to me in the last year or two,” he says. “I’m paradoxically more into the work than I’ve ever been, and yet in a way it’s less important to me than it’s ever been.”

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